Dublin City Council vote raises social housing numbers at new Poolbeg West site to 900

Friday, May 19, 2017 - 06:01 AM

Dublin City Council has agreed to include 550 extra social housing units on the new Poolbeg West site.

The 34-hectare site in the south-east of the city, includes the old Irish Glass Bottle premises.

Under usual rules 10% of of the 3,500 homes to be built on the site must be social housing.

But last night the council managed to increase that number.

In a statement, Councillor Daithi Doolan said: "The vote will ensure that 900 social and affordable homes will now be built as part of the Poolbeg development plan. This is a good outcome, but it could have been much better.

"Sinn Féin proposed a further 100 senior citizens homes, bringing the total to 1,000. Unfortunately the combined votes of Labour, Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil reduced that number to 900."

"We firmly believed that despite the scare tactics of the department and council officials we could have easily delivered the extra 100 homes. It is a wasted opportunity. Sinn Féin will continue to put pressure on the department to fund these senior citizen homes."